My attempt at addressing this subject has been to try and work through the historic tradition and teaching of the Church. While I'm what you could call a "liberal Christian", that is, I am a social/political liberal; I try to be traditional in my theology and practice. Fortunately I find the two go hand-in-hand quite easily (in fact it is my desire to be traditional and orthodox in my theology that has been the single largest contributor to my political and social liberalism).
Fundamentally "hell" has never been defined by the Church. There have been lots of views, and they have been very diverse, but at no point has there ever been anything resembling a definitive position on "This is Hell, and this is what we believe about it." There have been some who believe Hell is a literal chasm burning with literal fire where wicked people are literally tormented for all eternity; but that's hardly ever been the consensus historically. For many Hell is a temporary place of purgation, St. Gregory of Nyssa taught that the fires of Hell are like the refiner's fire which burns away the impurities and purifies, thus in Gregory's opinion Hell was more of a kind of purgatory through which even the most stubborn and most wicked would eventually be able to enter the glories of the future life.
So here are my own views, which have been influenced by a number of voices throughout the history of the Church, both ancient and recent.
St. Isaac the Syrian (7th century bishop of Nineveh) speaks of the fires of Hell as the fires of God's love thusly:
"Those who are tormented in hell are tormented by the invasion of love. What is there more bitter and violent than the pains of love? Those who feel they have sinned against love bear in themselves a damnation much heavier than the most dreaded punishments. The suffering with which sinning against love afflicts the heart is more keenly felt than any other torment. It is absurd to assume that the sinners in hell are deprived of God’s love. Love is offered impartially. But by its very power it acts in two ways. It torments sinners, as happens here on earth when we are tormented by the presence of a friend to whom we have been unfaithful. And it gives joy to those who have been faithful. That is what the torment of hell is in my opinion: remorse. But love inebriates the souls of the sons and daughters of heaven by its delectability."
That is to say, "Heaven" and "Hell" are the same "place", God loves all unconditionally, and it is this love which makes Heaven heavenly for the righteous, and it is this same love which makes Hell hellish for the wicked; the difference, ultimately, is our response to God's love.
An entire thread could easily be made to discuss C.S. Lewis' work, The Great Divorce; I haven't read much of Lewis, but from those who have I often hear that this is regarded as perhaps one of his best works--I have read it, and highly recommend it. It's hard to describe, because it's not like, say, Mere Christianity in which Lewis just explains things to the reader straight forward, it's also not like the Narnia books which are veils of fiction through which Lewis articulates his understanding of the Gospel narrative. Though it is perhaps closer to the latter, it is almost like a modern apocalypse, in which a fictional Lewis in a first person perspective describes ascent from Hell to the outskirts of Heaven, though where the ancient apocalypses usually had an angel giving a tour of mysteries, in this case it's a magic bus and one of Lewis' personal heroes, the Scottish theologian George MacDonald. Here are some juicy quotes that I think contribute here,
"'Then those people are right who say that Heaven and Hell are only states of mind?' 'Hush,' he said sternly. 'Do not blaspheme. Hell is a state of mind — ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind — is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly. For all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakeable remains.'"
"The whole difficulty of understanding Hell is that the thing to be understood is so nearly Nothing. But ye'll have had experiences . . . it begins with a grumbling mood, and yourself still distinct from it: perhaps criticising it. And yourself, in a dark hour, may will that mood, embrace it. Ye can repent and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticise the mood, nor even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine."
I may come back to this at a later time, but I'm realizing the time and sleep is a good thing.
-CryptoLutheran
